Whispers and Lullabies

The Darkness Beneath

Upon completing re-education and successfully receiving their Certificates of Proof, the group and their doubles (those of which had accompanied them) take leave of the Abandoned Missile Silo and go their separate ways, reveling in the fact that now they never have to be alone by themselves.

Solemn returns to his home beneath the overpass to find his double curled in the fetal position after having taken a brief glance at his mysterious tome, resulting in slight sanity loss. After a brief conversation regarding the dangers of the tome, Alexi takes leave of the group, still dressed in his frilly bathrobe, to attempt to garner assistance from others of his kind and disappears into the Whispering Forest.

After Alexi takes his leave, an unsettling herd of seemingly sentient cats appear to Solemn ominously.

Camille and her double are working a simultaneous double shift at the bowling alley while Teddy isolates himself in his office, overwhelmed by the duplicate presence of his most reliable employee. Camille prime becomes overwhelmed upon noticing the presence of the Hooded Figures bowling at the farthest lane and begins an incredibly unsubtle attempt at stalking them.

As they leave the bowling alley, Camille Prime slips away from work and follows them down the street toward Big Rico’s Pizza. Unfortunately, she is recognized by a passerby who inadvertently draws the attention of the Hooded Figures who encircle and attempt to scare her, although this only leads to her becoming fan-girl flustered. They abandon their attempts upon noticing her lack of fear and continue on their way.

Errol, resting at home, is suddenly inundated with bloody images on his television. The images appear to be CCTV footage of the inside of the post-office. Upon investigating, Errol discovers the interior of the post office to be full of impeccably dressed agents of some Shadowy Government Agency attempting to complete a forensic investigation at the bloody scene despite appearing dark and abandoned from outside.

Errol begins taking photos of the men with his found camera, but notices the men are not visible through the viewfinder.

Geoffrey, home with his double, receives a call to report to a crime scene, despite being overwhelmed with bodies from the now abandoned Waterfront Recreation Area which never actually existed in the first place and Geoffrey Prime and his double, renamed Jeffrey, pack tools and head to the post office in their Gothic monstrosity of a hearse/panel van.

Upon their arrival, they are met by Errol and the G-men who inform them that the bloody mess is the remains of “John Smith”. The Geoffreys are tasked with discovering how “John Smith” died and are handed a large amount of sandwich bags containing blood and tissue from the “explosion”. Geoffrey surveys the evidence and comes to the conclusion that the amount of blood and tissue is equal to 1.5 people rather than just one.

Solemn begins to interrogate the cats who indicate through body language that the Mysterious Tome is unsafe and needs to be dealt with immediately. They also indicate something regarding Alexi which is unclear, but is taken by Solemn to mean that Alexi is untrustworthy. Solemn attempts to burn the Tome but discovers that it takes no damage from fire, although he does upon its retrieval.

The group of cats then lead Solemn through town and to the post office to meet “the Waltz person” who might have some insight as to how to deal with the book. Solemn Prime then imparts the Tome to Solemn double and instructs him to hide until he returns. Rather than entering the front door, Solemn climbs to the roof and enters the building through the roof access after casting a “True Sight” rune spell, allowing him to see through Illusion. Despite attempts to be stealthy, he is discovered quickly as his entry through the roof access is noisier than intended.

Errol and Geoffrey investigate the noise to discover Solemn hiding in the darkness of the sorting room while Jeffrey discovers a set of keys amidst all of the gore located in the front of the post office. The key seems to belong to a PO Box, numbered 151, but the boxes located in the lobby do not continue beyond 130.

Camille recieves a take-out order and both Camille Prime and Camille double, angry at being left behind previously, deliver the food to… the post office. Swarmed by G-men, Camille prime anxiously demands payment for the food, but rather than payment, the head G-man simply hands her a phone. On the phone she hears Teddy’s voice telling her that “it’s taken care of”, no more— no less and the line disconnects.

Geoffrey, using his Ornate Magnifying glass, discovers a trap door that is not visible to the naked eye and much to everyone’s confusion, opens a passage into the floor revealing a staircase that Solemn promptly jumps down.

After taking a torch from the wall and enchanting it, adding a protection that would hopefully prevent the torch from being extinguished, they proceed down a stone passageway. In an alcove partway down the corridor they encounter a subterranean humanoid creature guarding his stamp collection which is patch-worked over the entire wall. The creature is revealed to be the passage guardian and will only grant passage to those bearing stamps, which Geoffrey happens to have.

After paying tribute to the creature and proceeding past, the group notices the stonework of the passage degrades into a carved tunnel with unknown, seemingly alien script sporadically covering the walls. As the proceed deeper, the script begins to cover more and more of the tunnel until the walls are nothing but a mosaic of the undecipherable script (that no one tried to read) and eventually dead ends in an altar covered in Organ meats, tree branches, carefully tied together clumps of hair, and totemic carvings.

On the wall behind the altar wait the missing PO Boxes. Using the found key, Geoffrey opens box 151, which is stuffed full of circulars and other mail dated several weeks ago. the only item of note is an un-addressed letter, containing several pages of a mysterious play, titled “the King in Yellow” and a letter requesting the safekeeping f said play. Geoffrey reads the pages, losing sanity in the process before passing the letter to Jeffrey and then to Solemn, who, upon reading the loose pages also loses sanity before reverse pick-pocketing the entire bundle into Errol’s pocket.

Stumped, but none the worse for wear, the team returns to the post office and emerge to find the entire post office clean and a group of G-men waiting to escort them to an unknown location.

The group is then led to a clean and futuristic looking bus that pulls out of the parking lot with no visible driver, whisking them to an unknown location.